Petrol prices: Do Queensland motorists care more about convenience?

Brisbane is the country’s most expensive capital city for petrol, but a service station lobby group claims Queensland motorists care more about convenience.

As the debate about fuel prices rages, the state government has shrugged off calls from Queensland motoring club RACQ to roll out real-time fuel price monitoring, prompting the LNP opposition to promise to take the policy to the next state election.

Retailers, though, are sticking to their line that price is less important to motorists than has been claimed.

He said retailers with discounted prices were frequently overlooked for “gleaming service stations that are locally convenient” or which have a wider range of products in-store.

“If community concern was as high as some like the RACQ would suggest, then we would have expected long queues outside service stations that continually discount, and no customers at the higher priced service stations,” Mr McKenzie told The New Daily on Tuesday.

But the reality is that such behaviours are not occurring, and we believe that is because people are making decisions based on the total petrol-convenience offering – not just the price of petrol.”

Mr McKenzie said ACAPMA consumer research found nine out of 10 people ‘always’ or ‘generally’ visited the same service station because it was convenient.

Analysis last year estimated Brisbane motorists could save about $40 million through the measure, pushing regular unleaded petrol prices down about 2.4cpl (cents per litre).

“Compared with Sydney, Brisbane has fewer independent chains operating in the retail market, and they do not price as aggressively,” the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission told The New Daily in a statement on Tuesday.

“Increased transparency and promotion of vigorous and effective price competition can lead to lower petrol prices. In Brisbane there is usually a wide range of prices at retail petrol sites across the city.”

Brisbane has the most expensive petrol in Australia

Analysis by the ACCC last year found petrol in Brisbane was the most expensive of all Australian capital cities, with an average price of 124.7 – 2.7cpl higher than the average across the other four largest cities.

Mr McKenzie said the gap in pricing was minimal, and said it was “fanciful” to expect real-time fuel monitoring to lower prices.

“The Leader of the Opposition should be pressuring her federal LNP leader Malcolm Turnbull to ensure the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has the powers and legislation it needs to act on this national issue,” Mr Bailey wrote.

The ACCC insisted it doesn’t have a role in regulating fuel prices, and merely monitors them.

“There is no impediment to the Queensland government introducing its own scheme,” an ACCC spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.